THE SPORT OF ROWING just kept going by and going by and going by. We got back control of the boat and started coming back on Northeastern, but it was getting closer and closer to the end, maybe the last 250 meters or something. “All of a sudden, Northeastern just stopped in the water and came back by us. We couldn’t see what was going on because we were in the boat just rowing, not paying attention except through our peripheral vision. They got it going again, but it was too late. They couldn’t catch us. “It was a tragedy for a couple of people in our boat because come Monday’s practice we were out of the boat, Eric Sigward and I, and that ended our Olympic trajectory. “Fritz Hobbs and Cleve Livingston went in at that time. They were there for Brown, which was the next race. The Varsity did better, and the Jayvee struggled, so Harry, I’m sure, thought he’d made the right decision. “I know I didn’t think so. I’m pretty sure Eric didn’t think so either at the time. It was something that was never really explained to us. It was the way that Harry did things. “The week before, we had been told that we were in the Varsity Boat. It wasn’t like, ‘Maybe you’re in the Varsity Boat.’ It was, ‘You’re in the Varsity Boat.’ “It was clear that the Varsity Boat hadn’t done well against Northeastern, but I certainly didn’t think it was my fault. ago.”4651 Summer of 1967 By 1967, the Olympic build-up was on everybody’s mind every week. By the end of Harry’s fourth consecutive undefeated collegiate season, seven of the nine 1968 4651 Wolbach, personal conversation, 2008 I didn’t catch any crabs. I didn’t slow the boat down. But I was out . . . “Fortunately, it’s now a long time athletes were already in their seats, but proper preparation for the Olympics required challenging international experience for the squad in the year before. Their first stop that summer was the Pan Am Trials, which they won comfortably with Penn second.4652 The next prize was the Gold Medal at the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Seven-seat Curt Canning: “We had two good races with a tough University of British Columbia crew representing Canada, but we won both without any real trouble.”4653 The summer’s third challenge was the North American Championships, a FISA test regatta on the newly renovated course on Martindale Pond in St. Catharines, Ontario. Harvard easily beat the British in what turned out to be the less competitive of the two heats. New Zealand won the other, upsetting Ratzeburger Ruderclub of West Germany, the favorites. After the reps, the finalists turned out to be Harvard, New Zealand, Ratzeburg, Canada, Australia and Great Britain. Canning: “In Sunday’s final, we lined up in Lane 5, between Ratzeburg and Great Britain. Harry had provided us his pre-race advice. Now it was up to us. I sat in the shell, my hands typically icy, insides taut, with a rather untypical realization that next to me was THE Ratzeburg crew. “And then the red flag went up. ‘États Unis, prêt? . . . Grande Bretagne prêt?’ A dreadful dip of silence, and then . . . ‘Partez!’ 4652 See Chapter 94. 4653 Curt Canning, The Longest Summer, Dart- mouth-Harvard Football Program, October 28, 1967, p. 68 1288
